


Companion to Dear Old Friend

by easybeak



Series: Dear Old Friend (and other stories) [2]
Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst probably, Flash Fiction, Fluff, Gen, Hydra, M/M, Other, Peter lives in stark tower, Protective Jarvis (Iron Man movies), Short Stories, Sleep, Sleeplessness, Sleepwalking, So does everybody else, Tony Stark’s lab, bucky barnes sleepwalks, bucky barnes's relationships with the avengers, wanda maximoff loves macbeth
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-14
Updated: 2020-02-29
Packaged: 2021-02-27 14:13:32
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,336
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22248436
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/easybeak/pseuds/easybeak
Summary: This work is part of theDear Old Friendseries.It begins after Chapter 24 of Dear Old Friend. Beware if you have not read that far.It's a collection of independent short stories, which revolve around Bucky and other characters living in the Tower.It will follow the plot of the original story, but I will accept suggestions/ideas in the comments, and it will continue after the original story is over.All Jarvis can do to keep the tower safe from Bucky and HYDRA is try to lock him out of restricted areas.In doing that, he drives him towards the common areas. Where the other people are.And while Bucky has a normal sleep schedule, the other inhabitants of the tower do not.He remembers the encounters as dreams, but the people he meets are very, very real.Thank you to @lily_blythe for the idea!
Relationships: Wanda Maximoff/Vision, referenced Steve/Bucky
Series: Dear Old Friend (and other stories) [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1601581
Kudos: 17





	1. Peter

####  **Stark Tower, the Night After Bucky’s Talk With Tony (About the Notebooks)**

The Soldier slipped silently out of bed, the faint rustle of the covers the only noise in the room. He left the room without another sound and without so much as examining his surroundings, walking slowly but surely, his bare feet coming down as quietly as he could make them. 

The room and the hallway outside were pitch dark. No lights turned on for him when he stepped out into the hallway. He was being watched, from somewhere in that darkness. Someone was out there, lurking just out of sight in the shadows. Whoever they were, their eyes were on him and only him. 

He didn’t know where he was going — only that he had to walk. He had to walk over every square inch of this building, examine every corner, every hall, and the inside of every file cabinet. No one had told him what the information he found was used for, and he didn’t think about it, either, because who cared if the length of this hallway was exactly fifty meters? But he did it, anyway, the way he’d done for weeks before this. 

This time, though, something was different. 

He reached the end of the hall and headed for the stairs like he usually did. He took them up four or five floors. The number didn’t matter. What did matter was that when he reached the door he was looking for, it didn’t open for him. 

That had never happened before. He pulled at the handle with his left hand, this time, in the hope that it would break. 

It held. More alarmingly still, a voice seemed to come from behind him. 

_ Please don’t do that. It’ll be a lot of paperwork to fix.  _

He tugged harder on the handle, his efforts becoming more and more frantic, to no avail. He’d never met another person on any of his little expeditions. He didn’t want to start now — his only instinct was to break the door open and run through it. 

_ Mr. Barnes, sir. Please. _

He didn’t know who this “Mr. Barnes” person was, but he turned around to look behind him anyway. There was no one there. In fact, the voice didn’t so much come from behind him as from everywhere around him. 

_ Go back downstairs. Somewhere else. You know you’re not supposed to be here.  _

The voice was unnaturally calm. It was almost gentle, and the Soldier hated it. He obeyed, though, because it was just a voice. Even if it didn’t like his trying to break down the door, it couldn’t do anything about it. 

He went back down the stairs, the way he’d come. His plan for the night had been disrupted. If that hall was off-limits, he would have to come back later and check to see if the voice was gone. When it was, he’d be free to go. Until then, he had to find somewhere else to look, but where? He didn’t know what his handlers would want. He was supposed to be careful and methodical, and they’d be angry when they learned he’d given up on that floor, even temporarily, but there was nothing he could do. 

Since the plan for the night had already been disrupted, he chose another door at random. This one opened and he walked through it, even though he knew he should be back upstairs. It was wasting time, wandering around like this, and his handlers would be very, very angry, but he had nothing else to do. 

He walked down a long hall, occasionally pausing to examine a framed picture or document or a view from a window. His handlers wouldn’t like that, either. They never cared about a pretty view or a painting or a sculpture, and maybe he couldn’t blame them, but this particular walk was just for him, now that he’d been cut off from his hallway.

Faint music drifted down the hall from around a corner. It wasn’t like any music he was used to hearing — he could hardly make it out, anyway. That should have been a sign for him to turn around immediately, but after the voice, he didn’t quite believe that there were any other people to find him. He proceeded, turning the corner and finding himself a short distance from a pair of wide-open double doors. 

He headed towards them. The music stopped. 

Before he could even set one foot inside, something cold and hard slammed into his side, and everything went dark. 

  
  


When Bucky woke up, he was lying on cold, hard tile. Worse, he was tied up. His bonds — whatever they were — were colder than the floor. They were hard and didn’t yield the slightest bit no matter how hard he strained against them. It was as if he were wrapped in a cocoon of metal. 

There was someone standing over him. He blinked up at them, waiting for the face to come into focus. 

They were talking, too. He squinted up at them, trying to make out a face or a word or two. He’d probably hit his head. 

“I’m  _ sorry, _ ” the man — the  _ boy  _ — was saying. “I’m sorry! I panicked, I didn’t mean to hurt you, are you okay?” 

The kid was kneeling beside him, looking down at him with wide, anxious eyes. He was holding a knife. 

“‘M fine,” Bucky mumbled. His head ached, and his ears rang. “Where am I?”

“Stark Tower?” The kid tried, his voice shaking. “Lab six. Downstairs?”

“Never been here before...” One of the ridges in the tile dug into the back of his head. It  _ hurt.  _ “What  _ is  _ this stuff?” He tried to gesture towards the bonds wrapped around his arms and chest but to no avail. 

“Webs,” the kid said. 

“Webs?” He repeated, deciding then and there that this was just some sort of bizarre dream.  _ Webs.  _ Yeah, right. 

“Yeah, webs. Look, I gotta get you out, okay? They’ll dissolve on their own but that’s gonna take a while.” 

Bucky sighed. “How’re you gonna do that?”

Peter held up the knife. “It’s not much, I guess. But it’s better than nothing! I feel like MacGyver.” 

“Who?” 

“Never mind.” The kid shook his head, his face going slightly pink. “I guess you wouldn’t… yeah. Never mind.” 

“No, tell me,” Bucky protested. He wanted to  _ know  _ — and he needed something to do while he was waiting for the kid to untie him.

“You know what TV is, right?” He asked. Bucky hardly heard him over the scraping of the knife against the “webs.” 

He nodded. He did. There was one in his room upstairs — not that he  _ used  _ it. It was a marvelous piece of technology, one of the many things Jarvis had shown him when his stay had begun, but he hadn’t used it. It didn’t bring him any closer to understanding who  _ MacGyver  _ was. 

“It’s a TV show,” the kid explained helpfully, the knife in his hand going still. “About this guy who uses stuff like this —” He held up the knife. “To diffuse bombs and get out of all kinds of crazy situations. It’s… really cool.” 

Bucky nodded. “Okay. I… I get it.” He’d have to watch it when he got back. Not that he had much interest in TV now that Steve had given him all those books, but he would give it a shot. It  _ had  _ looked pretty cool. 

“Yeah. It’s kinda… old, but it’s still really good… not too realistic, though.” He laughed to himself, pulling harder with the knife, which made Bucky wince. “Sorry,” he said hastily. “Sorry.” 

“It’s okay,” Bucky said. It hadn’t hurt — just startled him. “‘M okay.”

But he was much more gentle after that. 

Slowly, the bonds loosened and fell away. The kid sat back on his heels, triumphantly tossing aside the knife as if he hadn’t been the one to do this to Bucky in the first place. 

He decided to let it slide and sat up, the remaining wires or threads or  _ whatever  _ they were snapping and falling to the side. “Thanks.” He smiled softly, reaching up to rub at the place where his right arm had started to go numb. Pins and needles rushed into his hand when he flexed his fingers. 

“No problem.” He smiled, retrieving the knife and playing with it absently, tapping it against his palm and twirling it between his fingers. It was a miracle he didn’t cut himself, Bucky thought. 

“Never got your name,” Bucky said absently. He really should be getting back to bed soon — his whole body was weighed down with exhaustion, and his head and his back hurt after falling to the floor. But the least he could do was learn this kid’s name. And what he was doing in the Tower, too, for that matter. 

“I’m Peter,” he said, with a little shrug. “And you’re Bucky, aren’t you? I remember your rescue mission.”

“Nice to meet you,” Bucky said. “Were you… on my rescue mission?” Surely not. He was just a  _ little kid.  _ He couldn’t have been more than fourteen or fifteen — just a baby. It would have been  _ cruel  _ to make him go on a rescue mission. 

“No,” Peter said. “No, of course not.” Bucky thought he almost sounded disappointed. “But Tony and Steve told me all about it.”

“Oh.” Well, that wasn’t quite so bad. Tony and his friends were still barbarians, but that redeemed them a little. “It’s late. What are you doing in here?” He should have been in bed — not working in a  _ lab  _ past midnight. If Tony put him up to  _ this  _ — whether he’d sent him on the rescue mission or not — he’d be sure to have a word with him about it. 

“I’m spending the night here,” Peter explained. “Mr. Stark lets me stay and work in the lab if it’s not a school night. He’d be mad if he found out I was up this late, though, okay?” 

“Right.” He wouldn’t tell. “So what are you  _ doing  _ up this late, anyway?” He asked. 

“Just a… little project.” He sounded wary, but he stood up and beckoned for Bucky to follow. He did, shakily at first, nearly falling over as the blood rushed back into his legs. 

Peter led him further into the room, which he was only just now getting to admire. It was small but brightly lit, one wall entirely covered with windows that showed off a positively  _ glamorous  _ view of the New York City skyline outside. There were tables arranged in circles, spiraling towards the middle of the room. Bluish lights hovered over them, arranged into shapes and designs and  _ schematics  _ that Bucky could never hope to decipher. On the wall adjacent to the windows, there was a row of glass cases with something  _ humanoid  _ in them, all built out of shiny metal plates that reflected the blue lights from the rest of the room. They looked like suits of armor. He wanted to go and admire them, but that wasn’t where Peter was going. 

He led him into the center of the room, where a single rolling chair sat in front of one of the tables. There was a bookbag on the floor and a stack of textbooks beside it. Another book rested on the table. The spine read,  _ Chemistry II.  _ To Bucky, it looked like homework. 

Peter ignored that, though, and instead, he picked up a little metal device from the table and held it out to Bucky. 

He took it, hesitantly. “What’s this?”

“It’s a webshooter.” Peter held up his arm, and Bucky saw an identical device strapped to his wrist. “I’m just fixing it.”

“So… what does it do?” He asked, turning it over in his hand. 

That question was answered for him only seconds after. The “webshooter” let out a short, high-pitched hum, and a tiny version of the same material that Bucky had been wrapped in earlier shot out.

He nearly dropped it. “Shit — sorry — what  _ was _ that?”

Peter was laughing. He reached over to take it back, setting it securely on the table. Bucky tried to get the web off of his hand by wiping it on his sweatpants, but he only made the situation worse. 

“It’s just like the one I… you know. Used on you. You’re gonna need to cut that, though. They don’t really… break. I always keep a couple of knives handy when I’m working on something like this. ‘Cause… you know. Accidents.” And sure enough, there was one lying beside the textbook on the table in addition to the one already in his hand. Peter deftly cut through the strange material, and the knife was resting on the table before Bucky could so much as flinch. 

“So that’s what you and Tony do around here, huh?” Bucky asked, looking around the lab with interest. 

Peter nodded. “Yeah. He usually lets me work on the webshooters or my suit — I use it for patrols and stuff. You wanna see? I mean… if you don’t wanna go back to bed.”

“Oh.” Bucky  _ would  _ like to go back to bed, but Peter was nice. A little awkward, maybe, but he was nice and he was excited to show him around the lab. And Bucky wanted to see, too. “Yeah, can you show me? This place is… really nice.”

“Thanks!” He grinned. “It’s Mr. Stark’s, but… I clean up a lot. And those computers over there —” he gestured towards a bank of computers on the wall opposite them. “Those are kind of mine, too. He lets me borrow them.”

They had to be the most futuristic computers Bucky had ever seen. He wanted a closer look, but, well, they were Peter’s. He couldn’t just go over and  _ look.  _ “They look really nice,” he said. He didn’t know what else to  _ say  _ — nothing described them or the rest of the lab quite the right way. 

“I know,” Peter said smugly. “That’s what everybody thinks, too. And they’re  _ awesome,  _ I promise. Anyway, you wanna see some other cool stuff?”

Bucky could hardly even reply before Peter was already picking up a little round disk from the table and pressing buttons on it. A web of little blue lights sprung out of it — like lasers — and formed themselves into a picture. It was difficult to make out at first because it was very bright and it kept  _ changing,  _ but slowly it resolved itself into a schematic. 

What exactly the schematic  _ was,  _ Bucky couldn’t tell, but that didn’t matter. Peter was already explaining. 

“I spent  _ weeks _ on this thing,” he was saying. “It’s part of my suit. Mr. Stark wanted me to make it —just a cool little gadget, I guess. And he set it up kind of like the science labs we do in school, but… a lot harder. Gave me all the instructions and the supplies and stuff, and he says he’ll have a look at it when I’m done. It’s really weird, and… kinda hard to explain, I guess.” He shrugged. “It’s really cool. It doesn’t  _ sound  _ that cool, but it’s awesome.” 

“Well… what is it?” Bucky couldn’t make out what the schematic was supposed to  _ be  _ for the life of him.

“Nothing much.” Peter contemplated it for a moment. “It’s just a video display. So I can talk to Mr. Stark, mostly. He says it’ll also connect to the security cameras here. So I can keep an eye on the place, I guess.” 

A shiver ran down Bucky’s spine. If only he hadn’t asked — that wasn’t something he wanted to know. If Tony wanted a  _ watchdog,  _ he should put Jarvis up to it. Not  _ Peter.  _ “Oh,” he said after a moment, his voice coming out small and anxious and fragile. “That’s… cool.”

“I know, right?” But Peter seemed to have sensed his anxiety. He was tense, too. He switched off the hologram and reached over to pick up a pen from the desk, fiddling with it instead. “Is there anything else you wanna see? I mean… plenty of stuff around here to look at.” 

Bucky appreciated the change of subject. “Maybe some other time?” He asked. “It’s late. And it looks like you’ve got stuff to do.”  _ Like spying on me.  _ Did they have security cameras  _ everywhere,  _ or just in the hallways and the offices? Did Tony watch him while he was in his  _ room,  _ too? 

“Oh.” Peter’s face fell. “Okay. You’re right, anyway. I have… chemistry.” 

“So, um… see you around?” Peter looked absolutely crestfallen, and he didn’t want to disappoint him like this, but he knew Tony would find out about all of this in the morning. It was for the best if he left early. 

“Yeah. See you around,” Peter echoed. 

Bucky turned away and started to wind his way through the tables and computer equipment that cluttered the room. “Good night,” he murmured on his way out. He didn’t hear a reply. 


	2. Wanda

**Stark Tower, just after Chapter 25**

The Soldier was awake again. It had been a while, since the last time he’d been awake.  _ Days.  _ He was aware of this — he was behind, and last time he’d been out, he hadn’t even collected any data. Nothing new, anyway. 

As usual, he got out of bed and made his way to the door. Like he always did, he took the stairs up a couple of floors, and, just like last time, he found the door locked. 

_ You should know this by now,  _ the voice sighed behind him. 

He spun around, but, predictably, there was no one there. 

_ Go back to your room,  _ it said reprovingly. 

The Soldier didn’t obey. There would be nothing for him to find for his handlers if he went back downstairs to his room. He’d been there hundreds of times. Yes, there was a laptop in the bedroom, but he was sure he’d gone through it before. Doing it again would be a waste of time. 

Instead, he turned on his heel away from the door and climbed further up the stairs. The voice couldn’t stop him.

He climbed, but he didn’t bother trying any of the doors. He only wanted to go  _ up  _ — surely this place had roof access. He didn’t know why he wanted to see the roof so badly, but maybe there was a view up there. Maybe they had a helicopter, or some other strange, new technology. Maybe there was something his handlers would want. 

There were  _ so many stairs  _ — his legs ached as he climbed flight after flight, his breath came in ragged gasps, and he broke into a sweat before he was even four floors up. 

It was pitiful, but his urge to climb higher and  _ find the roof  _ only grew as he got nearer to the top. There were signs every few floors that told him how far he had to go, but the numbers weren’t changing fast enough. He broke into a jog, even as he gasped for breath and black spots dotted his vision. 

Someone wanted him on the roof — not his handlers, but  _ someone.  _ He’d never felt anything like this before, and he needed to know who or  _ what  _ was behind it. 

At long last, he reached the end of the staircase. 

There was a door at the end of it, like all the other floors. This one, like all the others, was solid metal. 

Unlike the others, though, the metal was very hot. Red light glowed from beneath it. Before he knew what he was doing, he was pulling the sleeve of his shirt over his hand and fumbling with the handle. To his immense surprise, it swung open, and with so little effort on his part that it was almost as if someone had opened it for him. 

There was a woman standing on the other side. She couldn’t possibly have been the one to open it, though, because she was in the  _ middle  _ of the roof.

“You came,” she said softly. She spoke with an accent — her voice was soft and gentle and it reminded him of Natalia, someone… well, he’d met her somewhere.

She was smiling. Her clothes were red — the same color as the light he’d seen under the door. That was gone now, but the roof was by no means dark. There was a full moon. 

The Soldier stood there in the doorway, shivering as the heat dissipated. He wanted it back. 

“I didn’t think you would.” 

He didn’t quite know what to say to her — this was only the second time he’d run into someone on one of these missions. He remembered the boy from the last time, but he couldn’t remember for the life of him what the protocol was or even how  _ he’d  _ handled the situation. His handlers were going to kill him. 

The woman murmured something to herself and gestured sharply with one hand. There was a flash of red light the same color as the blouse she wore, and everything went dark. 

  
  


When Bucky opened his eyes, he was staring up into a deep, blue midnight sky. He blinked. The stars didn’t fade away, and the velvety blue-black color above him wasn’t replaced with blank, white ceiling. 

He started to sit up, his head spinning. 

“Don’t get up,” said a very familiar voice from beside him. 

He looked over. There was a woman sitting beside him, someone he’d never seen before in his life. “Who…?” He croaked, his voice shaking slightly. His arms shook, too, as he struggled to support himself. 

“My name is Wanda,” she said patiently. 

“Why — where am I —  _ who are you,  _ what time is it —“ he spluttered. 

She laughed. “It’s all right, Bucky. Jarvis told me you were up. He said you were restless.” 

He was? And how did she know his name, anyway? Could he get away with just leaving now and going back to bed? 

Probably not, he decided with a little sigh. Wanda was watching him keenly — and  _ worse,  _ she was blocking the door. 

“Was I sleepwalking?” He asked. 

“I don’t know. He didn’t tell me, and it was… hard to tell, anyway. You seemed lucid enough.”

Jarvis was useless, sometimes. “Oh.”

“Yeah. Do you sleepwalk often?” 

“Don’t you know already?” Bucky asked gloomily. Surely Tony hadn’t  _ missed anyone  _ in his attempts to tell the whole Tower about it. 

“No,” she admitted, her eyebrows raised. “No one told me, anyway. Why?” 

He didn’t like the way she’d phrased that, but he decided not to pay attention to it. “Just wondering,” he said. She really must live under a rock if she didn’t know, he decided, or maybe he was lucky. “What’re you doing up here, anyway? It’s so  _ high. _ ” His ears had begun to pop as he’d climbed the last few flights of stairs. 

She nodded. “Isn’t it? I just like it up here. That’s all.” 

“Oh — okay.” He began to wonder whether he was afraid of heights. 

“It’s quiet, isn’t it? You can’t even hear the traffic. And sometimes my boyfriend comes to sit up here with me. It’s… a nice place.” 

“Your boyfriend?” 

She smiled slightly. “Yes, my boyfriend. I don’t think you’ve met him yet. His name is Vision — he’s… nice, when you get to know him.”

“Oh. Do you guys live around here? I’ve never seen you before. Never met a guy named Vision, either.” 

“Yeah. Mostly we keep to ourselves. We missed the dinner party tonight. Did you go?”

He’d nearly forgotten about the dinner party, but now it all came back. He wished she hadn’t brought it up, and he hastily tried to put all thoughts of Steve out of his mind. “Yeah. I went.” 

“Oh. Good. Vision and I always miss those, and… my brother usually does, too.” 

“You have a brother?” 

“Yeah. I do. His name’s Pietro. I think you’d like him if you met him.” 

“What’s he like?” Bucky asked. He was curious — Wanda herself was very strange, and he wondered if her brother (or her boyfriend, for that matter) was any different. 

“Well… he’s sort of… odd. But you’d like him, I think.” She smiled lopsidedly. “I could introduce you, sometime?” 

The idea of meeting new people — even just one  _ more  _ — still made him terribly anxious, but he couldn’t refuse. “Okay. If you… if you want to.” If the dinner party was anything to go by, it probably wouldn’t go very well, but who knew. Maybe Pietro would be nice. Clint certainly had been, but Bucky had made that weird. 

He’d try harder not to fuck things up next time. 

“Of course I do,” she said, in what he supposed was meant to be a reassuring kind of way. “And he’d love to meet you. He’s… kept to himself, lately.”

Well, Bucky could relate to that. Maybe it was better to leave Pietro alone. 

Wanda continued, “But he could use some company. And he’d like you… you’d like him, too.” 

Bucky had his doubts, but he didn’t interrupt her. Besides, he still rather thought this was a dream or some strange sleepwalking episode — maybe, unlike Peter, she would turn out not to be real at all. Hell, maybe  _ Peter  _ wasn’t real, either. 

“Bucky?” Wanda called softly. “You all right?”

“Yeah.” He shook his head slightly as if that would help him focus. “Sorry. Got distracted.” His head throbbed, and Wanda’s face went slightly blurry for a moment. He made a mental note to  _ stay still.  _

“It’s okay,” she said. “You must be tired. It’s late.” 

“I’m fine,” he said hastily. “It’s no big deal.”

“Are you sure?” She asked. “It’s all right if you want to go to bed.”

“No, really. I’m… I’m fine. I was just gonna stay up and read tonight, anyway. I… I don’t know what happened.” 

She laughed. “It happens sometimes. Don’t worry. What were you reading?”

“Well… Steve gave me a bunch of books.” His stomach twisted at the thought of  _ Steve.  _ He wished he hadn’t brought him up in the first place. “I finished  _ Farewell to Arms.  _ I was going to read  _ Macbeth.  _ Have you heard of it?” 

“Heard of it?” Wanda demanded, and Bucky was slightly taken aback by the indignation in her voice. “Of course I’ve heard of it! Have you started it yet?” 

“I… I’ve read it before. Just don’t remember it too well, is all.” 

Wanda shook her head in apparent disappointment. “You should have stayed in tonight, Bucky.” 

He got the feeling she was making fun of him. “I would have! I dunno how I ended up here.” 

“That’s a little bit my fault,” she admitted.

“How?” He couldn’t imagine how he’d even ended up here, let alone what Wanda had to do with it. No one should have access to a roof this tall. 

“It’s just a… I guess it’s a talent of mine,” she said, and a very familiar red light flared up between her fingers. 

Bucky stared, and it was extinguished. “How did you do that?” He asked, his voice soft and full of awe. He was dreaming, and he knew it, too, but that didn’t make it any less incredible. 

“Just a gift of mine. Pietro can do things like this, too, you know. He can show you sometime if you like.” 

“Oh. I… I guess?” He knew that would never happen — this had been a very long dream already, and he was bound to wake up soon — but Pietro sounded interesting. “He sounds like an interesting guy. But… really. How did you do that? With the lights?” 

He was still convinced that if it wasn’t just part of the dream, it was some kind of complicated sleight of hand as if she had a little red flashlight hidden up her sleeve.  _ Ha.  _

“Oh, it’s… no big deal,” she said hastily. “Really. It’s easy. Just something I can… do.” 

Another little hand gesture of hers and Bucky was suddenly very sleepy. It took him by surprise, and he nearly fell back onto the ground. His head had stopped hurting, though — he hadn’t noticed immediately, but now it was warm and almost pleasant. 

“Are you all right?” Wanda was asking. 

Bucky looked up at her, confused. “Huh?” 

“Sorry. You looked… I don’t know. Disoriented.” Something about her concern seemed almost false. There was a knowing kind of look in her eye. 

“Oh, I’m… I’m fine. Just tired,” he said quickly. 

“Well, you might want to go to bed,” she said offhandedly. “It’s late. I would think you  _ are  _ tired. It sounds like you’ve had quite a night.” 

He nodded. Was she trying to get rid of him? He  _ was  _ tired — so tired that he might even fall asleep on his feet in the elevator on the way downstairs — but he couldn’t wait to get into bed. It was cold on the roof, so cold that his fingertips burned and the tips of his ears were numb, and his legs ached, too. He felt as though he’d climbed a hundred flights of stairs. “I have.” 

“Well, go, then,” she said. “You’re exhausted.”

And sure enough, with every word she spoke, he only became more tired. All he wanted in the  _ world  _ was to collapse into bed. He stood slowly, his legs shaking. “I will,” he said. “It was nice meeting you, Wanda.” 

“And you, too, Bucky.” 

He rose and turned to head for the door. “Good night.” 

“Good night,” she echoed. 

Bucky hardly heard her, though, because the further away from her she got, the sleepier and sleepier he was, until finally, he  _ was  _ asleep. He became the Soldier again just as he reached the door, and the Soldier climbed down the stairs, satisfied with that night’s mission, and retreated to his room. 


	3. Pietro

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here's Pietro!   
> I am _quite_ looking forward to the next person on my list ;)

**_The night after Chapter 26_ **

The Soldier managed to get a little work done for once. It had been  _ days  _ since he’d managed to see more than a few feet of the Tower at a time before  _ the voice  _ apprehended him. Tonight, though, he managed to pass through whole floors seemingly undetected. 

Nothing he found was interesting. All he found were kitchens and lounges, and one large, cavernous dining room that he hurried through as fast as he could without the risk of missing anything. The mere sight of the round dining table and the comfortable chairs and the dishes in the cabinets along the wall made his heart pound and his hands go clammy. 

He didn’t belong there. His handlers shouldn’t see him there — even if that was his mission, he couldn’t be seen in a place like that. 

Other than the dining room, the rest of the night hadn’t been too bad. He couldn’t imagine what his handlers might want out of it, but he was just doing his job. 

He started to head in early, his mission finished. He walked back the way he’d come, taking less care and being less observant on the return trip than he had initially. If he’d been more observant, he might have seen the silver projectile that was flying towards him, but he didn’t notice until it was too late. 

* * *

When Bucky woke up, he was lying on the floor, staring up at a high, white ceiling. Someone was leaning over him. His hair was black and silver, and he needed a shave. He was holding his hand out towards him. 

He took it, grunting in pain as the stranger pulled him up. “ _ Ow, _ ” he mumbled, now standing upright. There was a sharp pain in his side and his shoulder that could be nothing good, but he didn’t remember how it had happened. 

“Sorry about that,” the stranger was saying. “Didn’t mean to run into you like that. I’ll bet you didn’t see that coming.  _ I  _ didn’t see that coming.” 

Bucky looked up at him in bewilderment. He  _ hadn’t.  _ He didn’t even know what he was referring to. 

“You all right? You bump your head or something?”

“No…” His head was about the only thing that didn’t hurt. He figured that meant he could be  _ reasonably  _ sure it wasn’t injured. 

“No concussions? I don’t need to rush you to the medbay or anything?”

“No.” He wouldn’t even know if he  _ had  _ a concussion. “‘M not dizzy or anything. ‘M  _ fine.  _ What happened?”

“You ran into me,” the stranger said. “I was… running laps. I always do that in the mornings, you know. And before I even saw you, you were just… walking across the track. It was so  _ weird,  _ man. I’m really sorry.” 

To his credit, the stranger did look genuinely guilty. And the pain was already fading, but Bucky’s memory hadn’t yet returned. 

“Damn. I’m sorry. I think I was sleepwalking,” he said hollowly. 

“It’s okay,” the stranger said. “You just startled me. I’m sorry I ran you over. I don’t think I’ve ever met you before — are you the new guy?” 

“Yeah. I think so,” Bucky said with an indifferent little shrug. “My name’s Bucky. I think you’ve probably heard about the… you know. The sleepwalking.”

“I… I haven’t, actually,” the stranger said. “Should I have? Anyway, my name’s Pietro. It’s nice to meet you.”

“Nice to meet you, too,” Bucky said, and he was struck with such intense  _ deja vu  _ for a moment that his head spun. 

Pietro watched him shrewdly. “Are you  _ sure  _ you don’t have a concussion? The people in the medbay are nice. They won’t mind you coming in this early.”

The way he said it, Bucky was sure he knew from experience. “I’m fine, thanks,” he said with a little shrug. 

“Okay. If you’re  _ sure, _ ” Pietro repeated. “I don’t want it to be my fault if your concussion gets really bad later, okay?”

“I don’t have a concussion,” Bucky reminded him, but he was less sure of himself now, even though his head  _ still  _ didn’t hurt. He felt strange, but not in a painful way, exactly. The pain from his fall was mostly gone. He felt  _ fine,  _ but Pietro was unsettling. There was nothing wrong with him, but something about the way he talked, or the way he moved… it was like Bucky couldn’t quite keep his eyes on him. He moved  _ too much.  _ When Bucky blinked, Pietro did things that happened so quickly that they were over before Bucky opened his eyes again. 

Bucky didn’t think Pietro meant him any harm — he didn’t even think it was anything more than a figment of his imagination — but that didn’t unnerve him any less. Pietro’s silver hair weirded him out, too. 

“If you’re sure,” Pietro said wearily. “You look… kinda off, man. You sick or something? You’re real pale.”

“I’m not  _ sick,”  _ Bucky said scornfully. He wasn’t sick. He couldn’t remember ever  _ being  _ sick — not since the forties. “Really. I’m fine. Do you always get up this early?” 

“Just about,” Pietro said. To Bucky, he sounded a little defensive. It came across almost as funny. “I go right back to bed after this. You should try it sometime. It’s real refreshing. Gym’s  _ usually  _ empty this time of night.” 

Bucky caught his meaning. “I’ll have to try that,” he agreed, although he’d have to pick a different time. Pietro seemed to have the place pretty booked around five or six. It would be nice to go running some time, though. He needed to get out more. 

It might not be the  _ end  _ of the world if he ran into someone new. 

He might have asked if he could stay awhile because he could have done with a light jog to work off some of his nervous energy, but he was exhausted. All he wanted to do was get to bed. Pietro probably would have kicked him out, anyway. He looked more than capable. 

"What time is it?" He asked, after a pause. 

"' Bout five-thirty," Pietro said with a little shrug. "I'm probably gonna go back to bed soon. You should, too. You look like you haven't slept in  _ days _ , dude." 

Bucky laughed hollowly. "Thanks, man. I should probably get to bed soon, though. It's later — earlier — than I thought."

He was almost asleep on his feet, truth be told, and all he wanted to do was crawl into bed. Pietro looked like he wanted to do the same. 

It would have been funny, how desperate to get away the poor guy looked, if Bucky hadn't been in the same situation. 

Neither of them had spoken for a while. 

Bucky broke the silence. "Do you... do you know your way around here very well?" He didn't. This guy was nice — or he was  _ decent _ , anyway. Reasonable. Jarvis would give him a scolding for being out of bed at such an ungodly hour, but Pietro might give him directions back to his room if he asked nicely. 

"Yeah. I guess so," he said with a little shrug. "You lost? I've never seen you around here before."

"Yeah. I'm lost. When I sleepwalk, I always end up in the weirdest places," Bucky said, laughing sheepishly. "I'm sorry. I can just ask Jarvis..." 

"No, it's okay," Pietro said quickly. "I know how he is. Where's your room? I mean... in general. I can just tell you where the elevator is if you like."

Bucky nodded. "I can find my way back if you tell me how to get to the elevator." The whole thing was faintly embarrassing, but it would have been much worse if he'd been properly awake. 

Pietro recited a long and unnecessarily complicated string of directions, which Bucky did his best to remember. He comforted himself with the knowledge that he  _ did _ at least have Jarvis to tell him where to go.

"Thanks," Bucky said shyly. "I'll... see you around?"

"Yeah. Good night, man," Pietro said with a little laugh.

Bucky set off. As he crossed the track, he was startled by a rush of air that lifted the hair off the back of his neck. When he looked back, Pietro was gone. In his place, there was nothing but a silver blur. 

The whole thing had probably been just a dream, Bucky decided. 


End file.
